Although the art of using refrigerants for freezing food products is highly developed, it is not commercially adaptable for quickly cooling hot cooked products as they come from a cooker. Thus, in cooling hot steam cooked products such as lobster, shrimp or vegetables directly as they come from a cooker, water or water spray has been extensively used. Water is a preferred medium with good heat transfer characteristics affording easy control of temperature of incoming water by chilling. Thus hot products immersed in water are quickly cooled, but the heat is transferred to the water making the cooling less efficient as the water temperature goes up.
it thus becomes desirable to have a chilled water stream passing stationary hot products to reduce the cooling time. In the prior art cooling is achieved with more thermal efficiency in the water cooling system by means of transporting hot products with a conveyor belt upstream in a water flow path towards the incoming chilled water so that the hotter products are partly cooled by the relatively warm part of the water stream heated by the products being cooled, and are transported toward the cooler water source as they become cooler. However this system increases the time taken for the cooling process because the warmer water does not transfer as much heat from the hot product as cooler water would. To provide a lower average time for chilling the hot products passing through a water bath on a conveyor, the conveyor capacity would have to be made greater by widening or lengthening the conveyance path and increasing the product flow rate. However, this would not be adaptable for use in plants with lower product volume or more modest cooked product output rates. Furthermore, the cost of rechilling the warmer water in a recirculating system is substantial, since the warmer water must be processed in a system that changes water temperature many degrees.
Accordingly it is a general object of this invention to provide a more efficient system for chilling hot food products taken directly from a cooker.
A more specific object of this invention is to provide a food product chilling system for conveying hot products through a water shower or bath that more quickly cools the products.
Another object of the invention is to provide a system for chilling hot food products in a water shower or bath that recirculates the water through a chiller at higher efficiency than prior art systems.
Further objects, features and advantages of the invention will be found throughout the following description, claims and appended drawings.